All of us were impressed with how the Ricoh customer
training specialist worked with us to understand how
to use the machine. We never felt embarrassed about
asking even very basic questions, and every answer
and explanation he gave us made perfect sense
– without the technical jargon.
Sydney Youth Orchestrasand Ricoh
”
‘‘
For nearly forty years, Sydney Youth Orchestras (SYO) has been
providing ongoing education and long term support to young
musicians throughout New South Wales. Today, with more than 400
musicians aged from six to 25 in nine separate orchestras, SYO is
recognised as the State’s premier orchestral training organisation.
In the background, it’s a core team of seven full time personnel that
provides SYO’s operational and administrative backbone. From
sponsorship and marketing through to membership and concert
management, the team operates on a lean budget yet remains focused
entirely on maintaining a highly professional infrastructure.
Challenge: Document management as a business imperativeWhile quality of young musicians may be a measure of success for
SYO, document management – printing, faxing, scanning and copying
– are crucial to achieving that measure. After years of coping with an
ageing copy and print device, 2010 became the year of change.
According to SYO Development Manager Liz Terracini, the not-for-profit
organisation had for too long made do with equipment that required
constant attention, was receiving poor levels of service and support,
and when it came to reliability, well, the less said the better.
One of the most telling examples of the impact the legacy machine
was having on the organisation is that it was taking an entire day
every week just to print and staple the music sheets that would be
used by the various orchestras during weekend practice sessions. “The
amount of frustration this caused was incredible,” Liz says. “It meant
that every Friday, anyone wanting to print anything else might face a
wait of several hours. And for the person producing the music sheets, it
was an entire day fully consumed.
“Then, when we needed to produce customer or external-facing
documents, the poor print quality and low print speeds were such that
we would have to outsource the printing to a print bureau. Aside from
the cost issue, there was also the downside of having to fit in with the
bureau’s schedule and the delays this ultimately caused.
“Added to that, we recognised that managing documents – everything
from faxes and single-sided membership forms right through to
thousands of full-colour saddle-stitched booklets – had to improve
dramatically. Essentially, it became a business imperative.”
The Answer: A Ricoh colour MFDDuring the early stages of 2010, SYO searched the market for a highly
efficient single unit document management solution provided and
supported by a vendor that had a demonstrable commitment to
corporate citizenship and values, and environmental responsibility.
“We recognised Ricoh as being the definite leader in all those areas,”
Liz states. “And when we spoke to them about the problems we were
facing and, more importantly, the document management requirements
we had, they immediately stepped in and offered to support us by
providing a Ricoh 40 page per minute Multifunction device [MFD].”
Ricoh’s support of SYO is in keeping with the company’s commitment
to assisting worthwhile not-for-profit organisations and the arts in
Australia. “Ricoh is now one of only four Corporate Program Partners
we have,” Liz continues, “and their support and solutions are very
important to our organisation’s viability.”
Secure and efficient workflowsWith the introduction of the Ricoh MFD to the SYO offices, document
management workflows have undergone enormous changes, all of
which have brought with them savings in time, cost and paper, as well
as improved levels of security for inbound and outbound faxing.
By taking advantage of the Ricoh MFD’s ability to distribute incoming
faxes automatically to either network folders or email addresses,
SYO has ensured instances of hard copy faxes going missing have
been totally eliminated. Now, all incoming faxes are immediately
emailed to a specified team member whose responsibility is to forward
them on to the intended recipient. In the case of outbound faxes,
the integration work of the MFD with the SYO network carried out
by Ricoh specialists has delivered desktop outgoing fax capabilities
to every user.
Along with a streamlined fax management workflow, the solution has
delivered the all-important benefit of improved security. Liz explains:
“We often receive credit card details via fax; and it’s our responsibility
to ensure that information is kept as secure as possible. Having the
faxes emailed to the right people and not lying around as hard copy
means we’re meeting that responsibility.”
It’s when it comes to volume document production, though, that the
efficiencies and savings are most prominent.
“The entire process of producing documents and booklets, either from a digital file or hard copy, is so incredibly
straightforward and quick on the Ricoh MFD.”
With the Ricoh MFD, we’re reducing our own carbon footprint by using an
energy-efficient multifunction device, cutting back on paper usage by producing
documents on demand rather than getting them printed in 1,000 lot batches
with a bureau, and taking full advantage of the in-built features that default to
double-sided printing and enforce print quantity quotas.
”
‘‘
According to Liz, it was training delivered in a manner starkly different
from what the team had expected. “All of us were impressed with how
the Ricoh customer training specialist worked with us to understand
how to use the machine,” she says. “We never felt embarrassed about
asking even very basic questions, and every answer and explanation he
gave us made perfect sense – without the technical jargon.”
Corporate citizenship plays a roleTechnology and document management aside, it is Ricoh’s strong
corporate citizenship and commitment to the environment that was
the initial driving force behind SYO’s approach to Ricoh. “The approach
Ricoh has to the environment, with energy efficient solutions and their
extensive paper saving features, means more to us than saving paper
and money,” Liz states. “We have a young membership and it’s very
important for them to see us aligned with companies that have the right
values and delivering services and solutions that reflect those values.
“With the Ricoh MFD, we’re reducing our own carbon footprint by
using an energy-efficient multifunction device, cutting back on paper
usage by producing documents on demand rather than getting them
printed in 1,000 lot batches with a bureau, and taking full advantage
of the in-built features that default to double-sided printing and
enforce print quantity quotas.
“It’s a solution,” Liz continues, “that affords us the document
management facilities we need as a business, the security we’re
committed to providing our members, and supports the values we
encourage in our young musicians.”
Booklets, for example, which were previously outsourced for
production are now produced in-house at a fraction of the cost and in
hours rather than days. “The entire process of producing documents
and booklets, either from a digital file or hard copy, is so incredibly
straightforward and quick on the Ricoh MFD,” Liz says.
“Having the ability to produce full-colour bound booklets in house
means we’re also now able to improve the overall quality of our
concert programs and other booklets. The colour quality in particular
we gain from the Ricoh solution is, as far as everyone here is
concerned, every bit as good as we were getting from the professional
print bureau, but for significantly less outlay.”
Even document copying has taken a major step forward, with the SYO
team members making good use of the MFD’s 100-sheet document
feeder, high speed scanning and printing, and intuitive control panel.
“There’s no more standing around, feeding in sheets of originals and
hoping for the best,” Liz says. “We simply place the originals in the
document feeder, follow the on-screen instructions to select the
appropriate settings then walk away. It may not seem a huge thing,
but in an office where there are only a handful of people responsible
for an enormous amount of administration, it’s a major efficiency gain.”
Training: keeping it realNew equipment. New features. New capabilities. All that’s well and
good, but it was the on-site training provided by a Ricoh customer
training specialist that was a major contributing factor to gaining the
growing list of document management efficiencies within SYO.
Ricoh Australia Pty. Ltd. 8 Rodborough Road, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086. Phone: 61 2 8977 1111 Fax: 61 2 8977 1100 Web: ricoh.com.au | Product code: B950529Ricoh New Zealand Pty. 60 Stanley Street, Parnell, Auckland New Zealand. Phone 0800 2 Ricoh (0800 2 74264) Fax: 64 9 915 1401 Web: ricoh.co.nz
We often receive credit card details via fax; and it’s our responsibility to ensure
that information is kept as secure as possible. Having the faxes emailed to the right
people and not lying around as hard copy means we’re meeting that responsibility.
”‘‘